Never Eat Tuna? Well, that's one acronym for NET, I suppose....

Hello there, Maria here! Greetings from Encounter Team One! We have spent a busy, but incredibly awesome last few weeks in British Columbia. Of course, I may be biased because I’m from this province, but it is so beautiful here! Springtime in BC is glorious and I am so glad to be here at this time with my team.

We spent two weeks in the Vancouver Diocese where we had some amazing retreats. That’s not to say that we didn’t have our tough crowds there, but every time there was one, the prayer times were always amazing. It’s awesome to see time and time again how quiet and reverent a usually loud group can be. We didn’t have a lot of down time while in the diocese, doing almost a dozen retreats in as many days, but we did get to see some of the sites of the beautiful city.

While we were in Vancouver we celebrated Marc’s 20th Birthday. We had a crazy Olympics-type thing set up. We went to Stanley Park, and were split into teams there. The first event was a crabwalk/wheelbarrow race which was won by Marc’s team (Mike, Carissa, and I). The next won was a Jello eating contest, where each team had to eat a whole container of Jello. That was insane. Marc’s team won that one as well. The next event to see who could spit the most water from a 4L container into a bowl placed about 6 feet away on the ground. Hilarious. That was won by Claire, Mark, Tom, Jacob and Katie’s team. The last event, my personal favourite was a worm eating contest. Gummy worms, to be exact. And they were covered in whipped cream. Attached are some pictures from the day. We also went down to the ocean that day and Claire, Marc and Tom jumped in!

The six days before Easter, we were lucky enough to stay at my house and put on a retreat at my younger siblings school! Easter was beautiful and it was so special to have my team and my family together during Holy week and Easter. My siblings (on team and biological) had some great times together.

We are in Williams Lake right now and have just put on two retreats for the Grade 4-7’s at Sacred Heart Catholic School. It was so cool being able to have two days to get to know the youth and hang out with them for so long. The first day we had Confession and I had one Gr. 7 girl in my small group come up to me during prayer time and ask me how to go to Confession because she hadn’t been since Grade 1 and wanted to. There were a couple girls, I found out later, that went to Confession who hadn’t been for years.

Hello! Judith here from Team Awesome! I want to tell you about a host sister/retreatant we met the other day. While we were staying with her family she was really struggling with her beauty. She didn’t believe that she had any beauty, so we (Encounter Team One) made it our mission to convince her that God had blessed her with true beauty inside and out. Every time we saw this girl we would tell her that she was beautiful, and I had the opportunity to sit down with her and talk about why she felt she wasn’t beautiful. After spending a week with her and her family it was time for Team One to hit the road again, but before we left she wrote me a letter. Here is how it started…
“Dear Judith, You are so beautiful (just like me)! You can tell Katie, Carissa, Claire, Maria, and the boys that they have talked me into it! I finally realize that I am beautiful in every way. And so are you! I have sinned, because I was thinking negative of myself. God created each and every one of us in a unique way…” Not only did she find her worth in God’s eyes, but through her God showed me my worth. I was struggling with my beauty until God placed this girl right in front of me. I guess God meant for me and this girl to meet up and fall more in love with him. God is using us to touch the hearts of people all across Canada, but He is also using everyone across Canada to bring me and my team’s hearts closer to his. So that’s my story with ministry and I hope that there are more to come. Later Days!

Maria again. We are sadly leaving BC in a few days, but are looking forward to the time that we will be spending at Carissa’s house this week, and in the Saskatoon Diocese coming up! Till next time, God bless and Happy Easter to you!

In Christ,
Maria Kalin
Encounter Team Uno.